The Louisiana senator who is sponsoring a bill to make it more difficult to remove Confederate monuments from public grounds has put off discussing that legislation until next week.

Sen. Beth Mizell, R-Franklinton, said she delayed discussing Senate Bill 276 because she had not been aware it was coming up in the Senate Committee on Senate and Governmental Affairs agenda until a few hours before it was scheduled to be heard.

"I am still planning on bringing the bill," she said.

The legislation didn't appear on the committee's schedule until late Tuesday night (March 29), even though the committee less than 24 hours later on Wednesday afternoon. That didn't give Mizell enough time to prepare for presenting the bill, she said.

Sen. Karen Carter Petersen, D-New Orleans, is the head of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee that will eventually hear the Confederate monument legislation.

Petersen said a mixup with staff lead to a few bills being added to the committee's schedule late Tuesday night. The Confederate monuments legislation wasn't the only item to come up with little notice, and she was happy to defer the bill until next week at Mizell's request.

But Petersen is also opposed to the legislation, which would affect local municipalities abilities to remove war monuments from their own lands. "I don't know if we need [the state] to dictate what happens to city property," Petersen said in an interview Wednesday.

The New Orleans City Council voted in December to remove the statues and the Battle of Liberty Place monument, capping a months-long campaign and public hearing process that Mayor Mitch Landrieu started as part of an effort to mend racial divisions in the city.

The move has prompted a couple of lawsuits to keep the monuments in place. And last week, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeal said the city could not take down the statutes while a lawsuit challenging New Orleans ability to do so is working its way through the legal process.

If passed, Mizell's legislation could also block the monuments removal. It would create a new Louisiana Heritage Protection Commission that would have final say on whether war monuments on any public property could be removed, including those related to the Civil War. In the proposed legislation, the Civil War is referred to as the "War Between the States".

The commission would be made up of the secretary of the state Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism as well as one representative from each of Louisiana's congressional districts who are picked by the State Senate President and House Speaker.

The commission's first meeting would have to take place before Sept. 15, 2016, under the bill. The members of the commission would have to be announced by Sept. 1, 2016. The commission members would serve four-year terms that align with the Louisiana governor's term.

Mizell said the bill was not specifically brought to block the removal of the New Orleans monuments, though she hoped that might be a by product. She said her home parish has no Confederate monuments, and her constituents have to travel to place like New Orleans to see such symbols. So, it shouldn't be left up to New Orleans to figure out whether they come down or not.

"Everything we have in Louisiana is of value to all of us," Mizell said in an interview. "Most of the school children have to go on field trips to see those things. That's why you take school trips to New Orleans and Baton Rouge."

But there isn't much enthusiasm for the bill in the Senate leadership. In a previous interview, Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, said he had hoped the Senate wouldn't have to spend a lot of time discussing the proposal.